Report March 2025

Submitted

Your organisation description

Advertising

Commitment 1

Relevant signatories participating in ad placements commit to defund the dissemination of disinformation, and improve the policies and systems which determine the eligibility of content to be monetised, the controls for monetisation and ad placement, and the data to report on the accuracy and effectiveness of controls and services around ad placements.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 1.1 Measure 1.2 Measure 1.3 Measure 1.5 Measure 1.6

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Not applicable

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

Yes

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Microsoft Advertising plans to continue to assess its policies, services and accreditations to update them as warranted.

Measure 1.1

Relevant Signatories involved in the selling of advertising, inclusive of media platforms, publishers and ad tech companies, will deploy, disclose, and enforce policies with the aims of: - first avoiding the publishing and carriage of harmful Disinformation to protect the integrity of advertising supported businesses - second taking meaningful enforcement and remediation steps to avoid the placement of advertising next to Disinformation content or on sources that repeatedly violate these policies; and - third adopting measures to enable the verification of the landing / destination pages of ads and origin of ad placement.

QRE 1.1.1

Signatories will disclose and outline the policies they develop, deploy, and enforce to meet the goals of Measure 1.1 and will link to relevant public pages in their help centres.

Microsoft Advertising prohibits misinformation and disinformation on its network.

As reported in QRE 1.2.1, Microsoft Advertising works with selected, trustworthy publishing partners and requires these partners to abide by strict brand safety-oriented policies to avoid providing revenue streams to websites engaging in misleading, deceptive, harmful, or insensitive behaviours.

Additionally, Microsoft Advertising has network-wide policies to avoid the publishing and carriage of harmful Disinformation and the placement of advertising next to Disinformation content. Such policies prohibit ads or sites that contain or lead to Disinformation. To enforce this policy, “We may use a combination of internal signals and trusted third-party data or information sources to reject, block, or take down ads or sites that contain disinformation or send traffic to pages containing disinformation. We may block at the domain level landing pages or sites that violate this policy.” Please see here for our main policy page.

SLI 1.1.1

Signatories will report, quantitatively, on actions they took to enforce each of the policies mentioned in the qualitative part of this service level indicator, at the Member State or language level. This could include, for instance, actions to remove, to block, or to otherwise restrict advertising on pages and/or domains that disseminate harmful Disinformation.

Microsoft Advertising assesses the impact of its actions by reporting on the individual ads that we prevented from monetizing on web properties participating in the Microsoft Advertising network (i.e., “publisher sites” that use the Microsoft Advertising services to display ads on their properties), and the number web domains that we blocked from participating in our ad network. We focus our reporting on the number of instances where ads would have been served but have been restricted from serving, thus eliminating an “impression”. Below we define this methodology as a count of Page Views.

- “Page Views” represents the number of pages viewed in which we prevented an ad from being served. This means that we proactively blocked ads before they may be shown to a consumer. Please see SLI 1.1.2 for the Euro value of ads demonetized associated with this Page Views data.
- “Domain” represents the number of web domains which received at least one page view in a Member State. Since Microsoft Advertising blocks domains across all regions (meaning, we don’t break down the blocks at the individual country level because we apply the same globally), we are reporting on the overall number across all Member States for the current reporting period.

Country	Page Views	Domain
Austria	460,850
Belgium	0
Bulgaria	3,504
Croatia	5,079
Cyprus	3,950
Czech Republic	75,076
Denmark	95,138
Estonia	1,438
Finland	0
France	1,784,624
Germany	4,418,339
Greece	0
Hungary	11,815
Ireland	326,844
Italy	8,256,291
Latvia	468
Lithuania	1,386
Luxembourg	0
Malta	3,032
Netherlands	0
Poland	23,777
Portugal	0
Romania	20,952
Slovakia	0
Slovenia	0
Spain	0
Sweden	0
Iceland	0
Liechtenstein	0
Norway	96,441
Total EU	15,492,563	158
Total EEA	15,589,004	158

Measure 1.2

Relevant Signatories responsible for the selling of advertising, inclusive of publishers, media platforms, and ad tech companies, will tighten eligibility requirements and content review processes for content monetisation and ad revenue share programmes on their services as necessary to effectively scrutinise parties and bar participation by actors who systematically post content or engage in behaviours which violate policies mentioned in Measure 1.1 that tackle Disinformation.

QRE 1.2.1

Signatories will outline their processes for reviewing, assessing, and augmenting their monetisation policies in order to scrutinise and bar participation by actors that systematically provide harmful Disinformation.

Microsoft Advertising works with selected, trustworthy publishing partners and requires these partners to abide by strict brand safety-oriented policies to avoid providing revenue streams to websites engaging in misleading, deceptive, harmful, or insensitive behaviors. These publishers also benefit from the set of measures identified above that Microsoft Advertising takes with regard to advertisers, which ensures that these partners receive high-integrity, non-deceptive ads from the Microsoft Advertising platform.

Microsoft Advertising’s policies with respect to these publishers include a comprehensive list of prohibited content that ads cannot serve against. Prohibited content includes, but is not limited to, Disinformation, sensitive political content (e.g., extreme, aggressive, or misleading interpretations of news, events, or individuals), unmoderated user-generated content, and unsavory content (such as content disparaging individuals or organizations). Publishers are required to maintain a list of prohibited terms and provide us with information on their content management practices where applicable. In addition to content requirements, publishers are required to abide by restrictions against engaging in business practices that are harmful to users (e.g., distributing malware).

Microsoft Advertising reviews publisher properties and domains for policy compliance, including compliance with restrictions on prohibited content. In this review, Microsoft Advertising also considers feedback from its advertisers to help ensure a safe environment for the delivery of their advertisements and maintains a review process to investigate related advertiser complaints. Publishers are promptly notified of properties or domains that violate Microsoft Advertising’s policies; such properties and domains are not approved by Microsoft for live ad traffic. If a property or domain is already live, and later found in violation of Microsoft Advertising’s policies, it is removed from the network until the publisher remedies the issue.

As stated in our revised policies, “We may use a combination of internal signals and trusted third-party data or information sources to reject, block, or take down ads or sites that contain disinformation or send traffic to pages containing disinformation.”

Microsoft Advertising partners with third parties as sources for strategic intelligence on domains. Microsoft Advertising actions domains, based in part on these sources evaluations as foreign influence related or non-compliant.

SLI 1.2.1

Signatories will report on the number of policy reviews and/or updates to policies relevant to Measure 1.2 throughout the reporting period. In addition, Signatories will report on the numbers of accounts or domains barred from participation to advertising or monetisation as a result of these policies at the Member State level.

As reported in SLI 1.1.1, since Microsoft Advertising blocks domains globally, not at the Member State level, we are providing the global aggregate number of 158 barred for the current reporting period.

Microsoft Advertising did not bar any accounts during the relevant reporting period. This is because we take actions by blocking web domains across the entire network, irrespective of which ad account may be promoting them.

Microsoft Advertising did not roll out any new policies in the reporting period. Therefore, the relevant “nr. of policy reviews” is zero.

	Nr of policy reviews	Nr of updates to policies	Nr of accounts barred	Nr of domains barred
Global	Zero (0)	Zero (0)	Zero (0)	158

Measure 1.3

Relevant Signatories responsible for the selling of advertising, inclusive of publishers, media platforms, and ad tech companies, will take commercial and technically feasible steps, including support for relevant third-party approaches, to give advertising buyers transparency on the placement of their advertising.

QRE 1.3.1

Signatories will report on the controls and transparency they provide to advertising buyers with regards to the placement of their ads as it relates to Measure 1.3.

Microsoft Advertising provides its customers with campaign reporting and functionalities to monitor and control ad placement across the Microsoft Advertising network. Such transparency controls are generally available via the campaign User Interface (UI) and through customer support. Transparency controls include:

- Ad delivery reports at the domain level: data reports show the website/domain where the ads are served.

- Site exclusions: ability to exclude certain websites/domains from the ad campaigns to prevent ads from serving on such websites.

- Negative keywords exclusions: ability to exclude certain keywords from the ad campaigns to prevent ads from serving against search queries containing such keywords.
- Syndication Publisher Network Opt-Out: ability to prevent any ad delivery on the extended publisher network. In which case, all ads will serve on owned and operated properties.

Measure 1.5

Relevant Signatories involved in the reporting of monetisation activities inclusive of media platforms, ad networks, and ad verification companies will take the necessary steps to give industry-recognised relevant independent third-party auditors commercially appropriate and fair access to their services and data in order to: - First, confirm the accuracy of first party reporting relative to monetisation and Disinformation, seeking alignment with regular audits performed under the DSA. - Second, accreditation services should assess the effectiveness of media platforms' policy enforcement, including Disinformation policies.

QRE 1.5.1

Signatories that produce first party reporting will report on the access provided to independent third-party auditors as outlined in Measure 1.5 and will link to public reports and results from such auditors, such as MRC Content Level Brand Safety Accreditation, TAG Brand Safety certifications, or other similarly recognised industry accepted certifications.

This measure is not relevant or pertinent to Microsoft Advertising, as it does not produce first party reporting. Please see QRE 1.5.2 for the relevant actions.

QRE 1.5.2

Signatories that conduct independent accreditation via audits will disclose areas of their accreditation that have been updated to reflect needs in Measure 1.5.

Microsoft Advertising undergoes yearly Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditations via third-party audit. The MRC accreditation certifies Microsoft Advertising’s click measurement systems adheres to the industry standards for counting ad clicks and the processes supporting this technology are accurate. Here is the Microsoft Advertising’s MRC accreditation letter. This article provides a summary of the click measurement processes and methods Microsoft Advertising employs to measure and count clicks. For additional information, please visit the IAB/MRC click measurement guidelines.

Microsoft Adverting undergoes yearly audit by the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) as part of the annual member’s compliance review process.

Measure 1.6

Relevant Signatories will advance the development, improve the availability, and take practical steps to advance the use of brand safety tools and partnerships, with the following goals: - To the degree commercially viable, relevant Signatories will provide options to integrate information and analysis from source-raters, services that provide indicators of trustworthiness, fact-checkers, researchers or other relevant stakeholders providing information e.g., on the sources of Disinformation campaigns to help inform decisions on ad placement by ad buyers, namely advertisers and their agencies. - Advertisers, agencies, ad tech companies, and media platforms and publishers will take effective and reasonable steps to integrate the use of brand safety tools throughout the media planning, buying and reporting process, to avoid the placement of their advertising next to Disinformation content and/or in places or sources that repeatedly publish Disinformation. - Brand safety tool providers and rating services who categorise content and domains will provide reasonable transparency about the processes they use, insofar that they do not release commercially sensitive information or divulge trade secrets, and that they establish a mechanism for customer feedback and appeal.

QRE 1.6.1

Signatories that place ads will report on the options they provide for integration of information, indicators and analysis from source raters, services that provide indicators of trustworthiness, fact-checkers, researchers, or other relevant stakeholders providing information e.g. on the sources of Disinformation campaigns to help inform decisions on ad placement by buyers.

As described in QRE 1.2.1, Microsoft Advertising partners with third parties as sources and references for strategic intelligence on foreign influence related or non-compliant domains. Microsoft Advertising is actioning domains based in part on information from these third parties.

Please see QRE 1.3.1 for transparency and control functionalities.

QRE 1.6.2

Signatories that purchase ads will outline the steps they have taken to integrate the use of brand safety tools in their advertising and media operations, disclosing what percentage of their media investment is protected by such services.

This QRE is not relevant or pertinent as Microsoft Advertising does not buy advertising.

QRE 1.6.3

Signatories that provide brand safety tools will outline how they are ensuring transparency and appealability about their processes and outcomes.

This QRE is not relevant or pertinent as Microsoft Advertising is not a brand safety tool provider.

QRE 1.6.4

Relevant Signatories that rate sources to determine if they persistently publish Disinformation shall provide reasonable information on the criteria under which websites are rated, make public the assessment of the relevant criteria relating to Disinformation, operate in an apolitical manner and give publishers the right to reply before ratings are published.

This QRE is not relevant or pertinent as Microsoft Advertising is not a ratings service.

SLI 1.6.1

N/A

Commitment 2

Relevant Signatories participating in advertising commit to prevent the misuse of advertising systems to disseminate Disinformation in the form of advertising messages.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 2.1 Measure 2.2 Measure 2.3 Measure 2.4

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

Yes

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Microsoft Advertising implemented the following measures:

Iterated on its automated detection mechanisms
- Improve AI model to detect clickbait and low-quality ads
- Continue expanding to multiple internal domain trust signals as well as partner signals to make domain detection more robust

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

Yes

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Microsoft Advertising plans to continue to assess its policies and services and to update them as warranted.

Measure 2.1

Relevant Signatories will develop, deploy, and enforce appropriate and tailored advertising policies that address the misuse of their advertising systems for propagating harmful Disinformation in advertising messages and in the promotion of content.

QRE 2.1.1

Signatories will disclose and outline the policies they develop, deploy, and enforce to meet the goals of Measure 2.1 and will link to relevant public pages in their help centres.

As described in QRE 2.2.1, Microsoft Advertising employs a set of policies that prohibit advertising content that is misleading, deceptive, fraudulent, or harmful, including misinformation and disinformation. In December 2022, Microsoft Advertising rolled out revised network-wide policies to avoid the publishing and carriage of harmful Disinformation and the placement of advertising next to Disinformation content. Such policies prohibit ads or sites that contain or lead to Disinformation. To enforce this policy, “We may use a combination of internal signals and trusted third-party data or information sources to reject, block, or take down ads or sites that contain disinformation or send traffic to pages containing disinformation. We may block at the domain level landing pages or sites that violate this policy.” Please see here for our main policy page.

SLI 2.1.1

Signatories will report, quantitatively, on actions they took to enforce each of the policies mentioned in the qualitative part of this service level indicator, at the Member State or language level. This could include, for instance, actions to remove, to block, or to otherwise restrict harmful Disinformation in advertising messages and in the promotion of content.

Microsoft Advertising assesses the impact of its actions by reporting on the ads that were loaded in the Microsoft Advertising campaign system but that we blocked from being displayed across our network and estimating the number of individual ad impressions that such ads would have generated (i.e., ads that would have been served to consumers).

“Unique Ads” are the individual advertisements (or ad creatives) loaded in the Microsoft Advertising campaign system that we blocked. During the reporting period, 2,193,970 ads were blocked globally (see “Global” total), including in all EEA Member States. For transparency purposes, the metrics mentioned in the table for each Member State are lower, as these are additional ads that were blocked in each respective Member State. Hence the totals for ads blocked in the EU and EEA as a whole, are in this instance larger than the Global total.

“Blocked Impressions” means the individual ad impressions that such Unique Ads would have generated if not blocked.

“Unique Domains” means the web domain or URLs that the Unique Ads would have directed customers to.

For example, if Advertiser A loads 10 ads in the campaign system promoting two websites associated with disinformation that would have been displayed 100 times, Microsoft Advertising will report 10 Unique Ads, 100 Blocked Impressions, and two Unique Domains. In practice, however, no consumer ever see any of these ads.

“Account suspension” means suspending access to the Microsoft Advertising services to advertisers who willingly or repeatedly violate our terms or policies prohibiting phishing, malware, or payment Instrument fraud. Suspended customers cannot serve ads until they redress the violation.

Country	Unique Ads	Blocked Impressions	Unique Domains	Account suspension
Austria	45,895	15,099,520	432	321
Belgium	13,602	16,341,515	489	679
Bulgaria	8,414	846,117	344	140
Croatia	5,557	589,799	254	25
Cyprus	6,005	385,434	285	139
Czech Republic	9,385	4,020,308	368	296
Denmark	11,955	3,736,810	377	453
Estonia	5,023	394,036	241	161
Finland	9,004	2,929,201	348	556
France	22,321	33,941,040	693	4378
Germany	184,877	169,260,210	735	7277
Greece	6,960	1,554,682	375	290
Hungary	8,412	1,381,649	336	61
Ireland	10,087	6,351,043	431	351
Italy	17,654	18,995,565	580	2022
Latvia	5,296	418,449	254	97
Lithuania	7,644	732,340	313	197
Luxembourg	5,616	736,362	300	43
Malta	4,377	274,817	241	27
Netherlands	13,072	13,276,757	579	1511
Poland	10,657	5,351,377	464	1068
Portugal	11,122	6,574,294	452	235
Romania	8,605	3,557,594	407	427
Slovakia	6,654	1,064,249	284	50
Slovenia	4,950	520,188	241	48
Spain	18,471	19,365,688	605	2857
Sweden	13,051	7,940,119	464	551
Iceland	3,771	312,425	222	23
Liechtenstein	1,058	61,850	126	5
Norway	13,590	3,895,944	411	426
Global	2,193,970	-	-	-
Total EU	2,668,636	335,639,163	10,892	24,260
Total EEA	2,687,055	339,909,383	11,651	24,714

Measure 2.2

Relevant Signatories will develop tools, methods, or partnerships, which may include reference to independent information sources both public and proprietary (for instance partnerships with fact-checking or source rating organisations, or services providing indicators of trustworthiness, or proprietary methods developed internally) to identify content and sources as distributing harmful Disinformation, to identify and take action on ads and promoted content that violate advertising policies regarding Disinformation mentioned in Measure 2.1.

QRE 2.2.1

Signatories will describe the tools, methods, or partnerships they use to identify content and sources that contravene policies mentioned in Measure 2.1 - while being mindful of not disclosing information that'd make it easier for malicious actors to circumvent these tools, methods, or partnerships. Signatories will specify the independent information sources involved in these tools, methods, or partnerships.

Microsoft Advertising employs dedicated operational support and engineering resources to enforce its advertising policies detailed below, combining automated and manual enforcement methods to prevent or take down advertisements that violate its policies. Every ad loaded into the Microsoft Advertising system is subject to these enforcement methods, which leverage machine-learning techniques, automated screening, the expertise of its operations team, and dedicated user safety experts. In addition, Microsoft Advertising conducts a manual review of all advertisements flagged to its customer support team and removes advertisements that violate its policies.

As stated in our revised policies on Disinformation, “We may use a combination of internal signals and trusted third-party data or information sources to reject, block, or take down ads or sites that contain disinformation or send traffic to pages containing disinformation.” Microsoft Advertising partners with third parties as sources for strategic intelligence on domains. Microsoft Advertising actions domains, based in part on these sources evaluations as foreign influence related or non-compliant. .

In addition to the policy on Disinformation, Microsoft Advertising’s Misleading Content Policies prohibit advertising content that is misleading, deceptive, fraudulent, or that can be harmful to users, including advertisements that contain unsubstantiated claims, or that falsely claim or imply endorsements or affiliations with third party products, services, governmental entities, or organisations. Microsoft Advertising also has a set of Relevance and Quality Policies to manage the relevancy and quality of the advertisements that it serves through its advertising network. These policies deter advertisers from luring users onto sites using questionable or misleading tactics (e.g., by prohibiting advertisements that lead users to sites that misrepresent the origin or intent of their content).

Measure 2.3

Relevant Signatories will adapt their current ad verification and review systems as appropriate and commercially feasible, with the aim of preventing ads placed through or on their services that do not comply with their advertising policies in respect of Disinformation to be inclusive of advertising message, promoted content, and site landing page.

QRE 2.3.1

Signatories will describe the systems and procedures they use to ensure that ads placed through their services comply with their advertising policies as described in Measure 2.1.

Please see QRE 2.2.1. Microsoft Advertising blocks sites or domains that our Information Integrity expert partners deem as spreading Disinformation.

Microsoft Advertising also rejects all ads associated with such domains and instructs its publishing partners to block ads from showing on such domains.

SLI 2.3.1

Signatories will report quantitatively, at the Member State level, on the ads removed or prohibited from their services using procedures outlined in Measure 2.3. In the event of ads successfully removed, parties should report on the reach of violatory content and advertising.

Microsoft Advertising removed ads after the ads were shown to consumers during the relevant reporting period. Since we remove ads running in all countries, the “Nr. of ads removed” count is the same across all Member States. The low figures are due to the proactive nature of our actions, since we block most disinformation content before it is shown to consumers.

Please see SLI 2.1.1 (Unique Ads) for the number of ads prohibited.

Country	Nr of ads removed (as well as reach of ads before they were successfully removed)	Nr of ads prohibited (same as Unique Ads in SLI 2.1.1)
Austria	2,527	2,239,865
Belgium	2,527	2,207,572
Bulgaria	2,527	2,202,384
Croatia	2,527	2,199,527
Cyprus	2,527	2,199,975
Czech Republic	2,527	2,203,355
Denmark	2,527	2,205,925
Estonia	2,527	2,198,993
Finland	2,527	2,202,974
France	2,527	2,216,291
Germany	2,527	2,378,847
Greece	2,527	2,200,930
Hungary	2,527	2,202,382
Ireland	2,527	2,204,057
Italy	2,527	2,211,624
Latvia	2,527	2,199,266
Lithuania	2,527	2,201,614
Luxembourg	2,527	2,199,586
Malta	2,527	2,198,347
Netherlands	2,527	2,207,042
Poland	2,527	2,204,627
Portugal	2,527	2,205,092
Romania	2,527	2,202,575
Slovakia	2,527	2,200,624
Slovenia	2,527	2,198,920
Spain	2,527	2,212,441
Sweden	2,527	2,207,021
Iceland	2,527	2,197,741
Liechtenstein	2,527	2,195,028
Norway	2,527	2,207,560
Total EU	2,527	59,711,856
Total EEA	2,527	66,312,185

Measure 2.4

Relevant Signatories will provide relevant information to advertisers about which advertising policies have been violated when they reject or remove ads violating policies described in Measure 2.1 above or disable advertising accounts in application of these policies and clarify their procedures for appeal.

QRE 2.4.1

Signatories will describe how they provide information to advertisers about advertising policies they have violated and how advertisers can appeal these policies.

Microsoft Advertising notifies its advertiser customers of policy violations through the following:

- Prompts in the campaign User Interface (UI)

- Email notifications (for example, for account suspension)

- Notifications from the assigned Account representatives, as applicable

Advertisers may appeal an editorial decision through the conflict-resolution process described here: How do I challenge a disapproval? (microsoft.com)

SLI 2.4.1

Signatories will report quantitatively, at the Member State level, on the number of appeals per their standard procedures they received from advertisers on the application of their policies and on the proportion of these appeals that led to a change of the initial policy decision.

Microsoft Advertising tracks appeals (at advertising creative and keyword level) in the aggregate and not at the Member State level due to the nature of its services. We are providing the aggregate global value of 4,999 total appeals during the relevant reporting period.

Country	Nr of appeals	Proportion of appeals that led to a change of the initial decision
Global	4,999	3,242

Commitment 3

Relevant Signatories involved in buying, selling and placing digital advertising commit to exchange best practices and strengthen cooperation with relevant players, expanding to organisations active in the online monetisation value chain, such as online e-payment services, e-commerce platforms and relevant crowd-funding/donation systems, with the aim to increase the effectiveness of scrutiny of ad placements on their own services.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 3.1 Measure 3.2 Measure 3.3

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Not applicable

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Not applicable

Measure 3.1

Relevant Signatories will cooperate with platforms, advertising supply chain players, source-rating services, services that provide indicators of trustworthiness, fact-checking organisations, advertisers and any other actors active in the online monetisation value chain, to facilitate the integration and flow of information, in particular information relevant for tackling purveyors of harmful Disinformation, in full respect of all relevant data protection rules and confidentiality agreements.

QRE 3.1.1

Signatories will outline how they work with others across industry and civil society to facilitate the flow of information that may be relevant for tackling purveyors of harmful Disinformation.

Microsoft Advertising is a member and an active participant in several trade groups, including the IAB and EDAA.

As part of the broader Microsoft engagements, Microsoft Advertising participates in threat exchange discussions with industry peers and trusted third parties which increase the effectiveness of our enforcement actions.

Measure 3.2

Relevant Signatories will exchange among themselves information on Disinformation trends and TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures), via the Code Task-force, GARM, IAB Europe, or other relevant fora. This will include sharing insights on new techniques or threats observed by Relevant Signatories, discussing case studies, and other means of improving capabilities and steps to help remove Disinformation across the advertising supply chain - potentially including real-time technical capabilities.

QRE 3.2.1

Signatories will report on their discussions within fora mentioned in Measure 3.2, being mindful of not disclosing information that is confidential and/or that may be used by malicious actors to circumvent the defences set by Signatories and others across the advertising supply chain. This could include, for instance, information about the fora Signatories engaged in; about the kinds of information they shared; and about the learnings they derived from these exchanges.

Please see the response to QRE 3.1.1.

Measure 3.3

Relevant Signatories will integrate the work of or collaborate with relevant third-party organisations, such as independent source-rating services, services that provide indicators of trustworthiness, fact-checkers, researchers, or open-source investigators, in order to reduce monetisation of Disinformation and avoid the dissemination of advertising containing Disinformation.

QRE 3.3.1

Signatories will report on the collaborations and integrations relevant to their work with organisations mentioned.

Please see the response to QRE 3.1.1.

Political Advertising

Commitment 4

Relevant Signatories commit to adopt a common definition of "political and issue advertising".

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 4.1 Measure 4.2

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Not applicable

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Not applicable

Measure 4.1

Relevant Signatories commit to define "political and issue advertising" in this section in line with the definition of "political advertising" set out in the European Commission's proposal for a Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising.

QRE 4.1.1

Relevant Signatories will declare the relevant scope of their commitment at the time of reporting and publish their relevant policies, demonstrating alignment with the European Commission's proposal for a Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising.

Microsoft Advertising policies prohibit ads for election-related content, political candidates, parties, ballot measures and political fundraising globally. Similarly, ads aimed at fundraising for political candidates, parties, political action committees (“PACs”), and ballot measures also are barred. All Microsoft and third-party services that rely on Microsoft Advertising to serve advertisements on their platforms benefit from these robustly enforced set of policies.

Furthermore, Microsoft prohibits political advertising across Microsoft media properties and platforms. Microsoft Advertising’s policies also prohibit certain types of advertisements that might be considered issue-based. More specifically, “advertising that exploits political agendas, sensitive political issues or uses ‘hot button’ political issues or names of prominent politicians is not allowed regardless of whether the advertiser has a political agenda,” and “advertising that exploits sensitive political [or religious] issues for commercial gain or promote extreme political [or extreme religious] agendas or any known associations with hate, criminal or terrorist activities” is also prohibited.

As stated in our revised policies, “We may use a combination of internal signals and trusted third-party data or information sources to reject, block, or take down ads or sites that contain disinformation or send traffic to pages containing disinformation.”

See here:

Microsoft Advertising - Restricted Content - Political Content and

Microsoft Advertising – Restricted Content - Religious Content

QRE 4.1.2

After the first year of the Code's operation, Relevant Signatories will state whether they assess that further work with the Task-force is necessary and the mechanism for doing so, in line with Measure 4.2.

Microsoft looks forward to the full entry into application of the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising and the associated upcoming common guidance to be issued in accordance with Art. 8.2 of the Regulation.

Commitment 5

Relevant Signatories commit to apply a consistent approach across political and issue advertising on their services and to clearly indicate in their advertising policies the extent to which such advertising is permitted or prohibited on their services.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 5.1

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Not applicable

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Not applicable as Microsoft Advertising currently prohibits all political advertising, as outlined under QRE 5.1.1.

Measure 5.1

Relevant Signatories will apply the labelling, transparency and verification principles (as set out below) across all ads relevant to their Commitments 4 and 5. They will publicise their policy rules or guidelines pertaining to their service's definition(s) of political and/or issue advertising in a publicly available and easily understandable way.

QRE 5.1.1

Relevant Signatories will report on their policy rules or guidelines and on their approach towards publicising them.

Microsoft Advertising policies prohibit ads for election-related content, political candidates, parties, ballot measures and political fundraising globally; similarly, ads aimed at fundraising for political candidates, parties, political action committees (“PACs”), and ballot measures also are barred. All Microsoft and third-party services that rely on Microsoft Advertising to serve advertisements on their platforms benefit from these robustly enforced set of policies.

Furthermore, Microsoft prohibits political advertising across Microsoft media properties and platforms. Microsoft Advertising’s policies also prohibit certain types of advertisements that might be considered issue-based. More specifically, “advertising that exploits political agendas, sensitive political issues or uses ‘hot button’ political issues or names of prominent politicians is not allowed regardless of whether the advertiser has a political agenda,” and “advertising that exploits sensitive political [or religious] issues for commercial gain or promote extreme political or extreme religious agendas or any known associations with hate, criminal or terrorist activities” is also prohibited.

See here:

Microsoft Advertising - Restricted Content - Political content and Microsoft Advertising – Restricted Content - Religious Content

Commitment 7

Relevant Signatories commit to put proportionate and appropriate identity verification systems in place for sponsors and providers of advertising services acting on behalf of sponsors placing political or issue ads. Relevant signatories will make sure that labelling and user-facing transparency requirements are met before allowing placement of such ads.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 7.3

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Not applicable

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Not applicable

Measure 7.3

Relevant Signatories will take appropriate action, such as suspensions or other account-level penalties, against political or issue ad sponsors who demonstrably evade verification and transparency requirements via on-platform tactics. Relevant Signatories will develop - or provide via existing tools - functionalities that allow users to flag ads that are not labelled as political.

QRE 7.3.1

Relevant Signatories will report on the tools and processes in place to request a declaration on whether the advertising service requested constitutes political or issue advertising.

As set out in QRE 5.1.1, Microsoft Advertising prohibits ads for election-related content, political candidates, parties, ballot measures and political fundraising globally; similarly, ads aimed at fundraising for political candidates, parties, political action committees (“PACs”), and ballot measures also are barred. All Microsoft and third-party services that rely on Microsoft Advertising to serve advertisements on their platforms benefit from these robustly enforced set of policies.

Furthermore, Microsoft Advertising’s policies also prohibit certain types of advertisements that might be considered issue-based. More specifically, “advertising that exploits political agendas, sensitive political issues or uses ‘hot button’ political issues or names of prominent politicians is not allowed regardless of whether the advertiser has a political agenda,” and “advertising that exploits sensitive political [or religious] issues for commercial gain or promote extreme political or extreme religious agendas or any known associations with hate, criminal or terrorist activities” is also prohibited. In addition, to comply with local laws in Canada and France, Microsoft Advertising has prohibited advertising content related to debates of general interest linked to an electoral campaign in those jurisdictions.

See here:

Microsoft Advertising - Restricted Content - Political contentand Microsoft Advertising – Restricted Content - Religious Content

QRE 7.3.2

Relevant Signatories will report on policies in place against political or issue ad sponsors who demonstrably evade verification and transparency requirements on-platform.

Microsoft Advertising does not offer its advertising services to customers or partners that may promote political content. For example, a political party would be made aware by our customer support team that it cannot run political ads campaigns through our ad network.

Microsoft Advertising employs dedicated operational support and engineering resources to enforce restrictions on political advertising using a combination of proactive and reactive mechanisms. On the proactive side, Microsoft Advertising has implemented several processes designed to identify and block political ads from showing across its advertising network, including restrictions on certain terms and from certain domains. For example, we compile a list of terms comprised of known political parties, candidates, and ballot measures and block any ads that may be otherwise shown on a search engine search for such terms. On the reactive side, if Microsoft Advertising becomes aware that an ad suspected of violating its policies is being served to our publishers—for instance, because a user flagged that ad to our customer support team—the offending ad is promptly reviewed. If it violates our policies, we will take it down. Users can report advertising that may be in violation of the Microsoft Advertising policies through the publisher-specific reporting form or via this form: Low quality ad submission & escalation - Microsoft Advertising

The above actions apply across all the websites that use Microsoft Advertising to serve ads on their properties, whether owned and operated by Microsoft (like Bing) or third-party websites.